Phone box Museum

Deep in the heart of Rural England lies the village of Farthingstone which has a old British red phone box that is the village museum.

Rolleiflex, Kodak Ektar, May 2015

One roll: Minsmere RSPB Reserve.

 Minsmere was established in 1947 by the RSPB. It was created by flooding farm land during the war in order to make the coast easier to defend. This encouraged many wading birds (including Avocets) to colonise the areas of reed beds and lowland wet grassland. The nature reserve is recognised for its high diversity of bird species and other wildlife and is used as a demonstration of successful reed bed management. It is visited by thousands of bird watchers each year hoping to see Bitterns, Marsh Harriers and other wetland birds.

Minsmere Sluice

Cable reel in drainage ditch

Teasels

Birdwatchers follow incoming geese

Drain

Tree in North marsh

View across north marsh

Pond at South Belt cross road





View over the west scrape

All of the images were taken on a Rolleiflex 3,5F with Kodak Portra 400 film on a single day in March 2015

Found Film Kodak Vericolor 120

Every so often I'm given old films, mostly from old cameras and this is one of those films. I have no idea who shot these or where they were shot the guess is in the early 1990's timeframe.
The film itself is a Kodak Vericolor which was Kodak's professional emulsion before the introduction of the Portra range.

 

These images were quite faded and needed a little cleaning up, but aren't too bad having spent a quarter of a century in the back of a camera, ghosts from the past...

Keep it–with Kodak

This morning over breakfast I learned that Kodak's current management team are divesting themselves of their chief asset and for most people their most recognisable product–their film division.

Kodak announcement  

The current state

Kodak over the last 10 years have consolidated the production plant, it is now the most efficient film coating facility in the world–it can't downsize any more because only building 38 is left as far as I know they have two coating lines–the film division is profitable.

Edit: Kodak are still making film, they haven't 'killed it off' like some people in digital camera forums have suggested, production continues while they look for a buyer.

So what next? 

This situation is a make or break one for Kodak Film, the positive being the fracture between top board members who have been hammering the giant into the ground pursuing the consumer ink-jet market and those on the ground who passionately believe in their great product. Once these two have parted company those who run the film division and actually believe in film should be able to reach consumers, meet their needs and hopefully develop the niche.
The negative being that the economy is bad, costs of raw materials like silver are rising pushing up the cost of the end product in a time where people have less disposable income.

Who could buy the division?
It is hard to see another film based company buying the plant with rising costs and sale.
In the current climate no one is going to want to expand, so that leaves us with a venture capitalist possibly backed by money from business or some party with a large interest.
But remember how GM nearly collapsed, yet people are buying cars sad fact is people aren't buying so much film–the one player with the best quality product is profitable but not well managed.
The next six months will tell us how it will 'pan' out. (intended pun in quotes) 

© Photo Utopia 2012

Kodak announces new Portra 400 film

Kodak Have recently introduced a new 400 ISO film to their Portra range here is what their blurb:

"The new PORTRA 400 is the world’s finest grain high-speed color negative film. At true ISO 400 speed, this film delivers spectacular skin tones plus exceptional color saturation over a wide range of lighting conditions"


The film actually replaces both existing 400 speed films in the Portra range Portra 400NC and 400VC and colour saturation wise falls between those two films, the grain is supposed to be finer than it's predecessors so obviously incorporates the technologies from their Vision movie films.

I think if this film lives up to Kodak's promises it should have a colour saturation similar to Fuji NPH only with slightly finer grain, which will make it a very competitive product.

Like most photographers I see this as a consolidation, the loss of NC and VC will be less of an issue to those who work in a hybrid workflow, and if it helps Kodak to keep turning out better and better products albeit in a smaller range-that's Ok by me.

Portra 400 should be available in November, as soon as I can get my hands on a sample I'll do one of my mini reviews to see if the claims made by Kodak are substantiated.

Here is the Kodak web Page:

Kodak Portra 400

© Mark Antony 2010

Kodak Ektar 100 in 120

It is now over a year since Kodak announced the 35mm version of this film, after which many photographers asked for it in 120 size. After a few months Kodak obliged releasing a 120 version. I have a review of the 35mm emulsion here Ektar 100 35mm

So why review the medium format size?

My feeling after over 6 months of use (about 10 rolls) that the two are slightly different in character, I'm sure that its not just the format or the cameras, I actually think they behave in a different way.

First of all some tests that as normal centre around a Kodak No13 colour chart taken in a shaded area, first taking a 1 per cent spot meter reading from a grey card then taking -2 N and +2 exposures
The -2 has a slight lack of shadow detail, but just as with the 35mm shows an acceptable result, slightly more grain and lower contrast with a slight colour cast .
he normal was the easiest to scan and wet print, good colour and contrast greys remained neutral
The +2 has better shadow detail, but seems to have a blue/magenta cast which although can be filtered was in my opinion not as neutral as the normal neg
In bright sunlight colours are saturated,but detailed, slightly more conventional than the 35mm Ektar emulsion but in the same ballpark.
This shot and the following shot were made in quite dull conditions and for me this is where the results are different from the small format version. I would have thought that colours would remain fairly saturated, but in fact what I got from the two rolls shot on this day would be similar to what I would expect from Kodak Portra 160. I know what you're thinking that in some way they are under-exposed or possibly processing may have been different.
Seeing these results raised doubt in my mind about firstly my Minota spotmeter which checked out fine and then with the processing. In later trials though I tested the film in both cloudy and full sun and can confirm that the 120 film has slightly more muted colour when the weather is dull. I can say that I haven't come to this conclusion lightly and have actually re-written and put back this review until I felt that I had repeated consistent results from different cameras, processors and conditions.

This shot was taken in shadow and was to see how the film rendered skin tones, overall Ektar impresses me how it boosts reds and blues and yet gives quite natural believable skin tones, it does this with both versions of the film in a similar manner, I'd imagine it would be a great choice for fashion photography.

Something I've noticed though is a slight tendency for cooler colours in the shadow regions, this in my opinion is more so with the 120.

My overall conclusions are that this version of Ektar is similar yet not exactly the same as the 35mm version. So if you need a very fine grained film with good (yet not over the top) saturation especially in the red and blue parts of the spectrum this film is well worth a try.

Kodachrome: A celebration of a legend

Kodachrome was born in 1935 the product of two musicians Leopold Godowsky and Leopold Mannes giving the phrase to Kodak employees 'Kodachrome made by God and Man'

Initially for 16mm movies with 35mm Stills following a year later. The film was the first really easy to use (no filters or glass plates) colour film which made it popular with serious amateurs and professionals especially with the then relatively new Leica cameras.

But the main reason for its success was its wonderful colours. Here courtesy of Simon97 are some images made before the second world war at the world fair in 1939:

Most peoples vision of the 1930's is a dull grey these wonderful images show otherwise rich bright colours and tones that would become part of the post war portrayal of the American dream

Kodachrome in the 1930's was expensive; the equivalent of about $50 per roll in todays money which meant that it was used mainly by enthusiasts for important subjects like weddings, travels abroad and family occasions.

Over the next few years the film cemented its position as the number one colour film also being used by National Geographic to bring the colourful Kodachrome world right into the homes of ordinary Americans and people worldwide.

During the 1950's and 60's Kodachrome was at its peak in popularity, used to record many of histories defining moments; The conquering of Everest, Kennedy's assassination (16mm cine film) pictures of stars like Marilyn Monroe and Brigitte Bardot- Kodachrome was the colour of the 1950's and 60's.

During the 1960's the speed of the film was increased with the introduction of Kodachrome II the film became much easier to use for the average enthusiast 'snapper' of everyday family life, a Super 8 cine film was introduced at the same time.

By the late 1970's early 1980's people started to move away from slides and slide shows to the easier and faster colour print films for documenting family holidays; 1 hour mini-labs were starting to become common and professionals started using E-6 films like Ektachrome and Fujichrome.

As we moved into the 1990's Kodachrome had fallen out of favour, faster versions like the 200 ASA version and the introduction of 120 roll film versions aimed at professionals couldn't stem the tide and by 1998 Kodak started to close some Kodachrome labs and centralize their operations. Ten years later there was only one lab left to process the film and just a single speed in Kodaks product portfolio KR64.

The ultimate demise of Kodachrome was inevitable and started long ago, as a photographer I can only thank Kodak for keeping it going so long as I've been able to document my own children's early lives with a medium that has a proven longevity. I personally would have liked to see a '75 year birthday' but I expect Kodak are putting all their available efforts into the new modern 2 electron films they have recently introduced.

The end of an era, but I've a feeling that those slides will outlive most people reading this.

Kodachrome: born 1935 -expired 2009 aged 74 after a long and productive life. It leaves a treasure trove of social history and has touched the lives of millions of people worldwide.

All images and text © Mark Antony Smith 2009

Kodak Ektar 100

Kodak Ektar 100 according to Kodak: Featuring ISO 100 speed, high saturation and ultra-vivid color, EKTAR 100 offers the finest, smoothest grain of any color negative film available today.
Quite a boast, how does it achieve this speed/finest grain?
The answer is it borrows a technology from Kodaks Vision movie film stock called "2 electron sensitisation" This doesn't mean that it is just a re-packaged movie film far from it. Kodak has been working on the problems associated with the Vision line like poor keeping qualities and more efficient chemical scavengers in order to make the technology suitable for stills use.

What is 2 electron sensitisation?
Here is how the development team explain it:
"Here we describe a new concept for increasing the efficiency of photographic systems, two-electron sensitization, which makes use of the chemical potential stored in the oxidized dyes. In conventional photography, subsequent reactions of the oxidized dyes are not controlled and may in fact include counterproductive return electron transfer reactions (recombination). In the two-electron sensitization scheme, an appropriately designed electron donor molecule, X−Y, that is added to the photographic dispersion transfers an electron to the oxidized dye to give a radical cation, X−Y•+. The X−Y•+ then undergoes a fragmentation reaction to give a radical, X•, and a stable cation, Y+. The radical X• is chosen to be sufficiently reducing so that it can inject an electron into the silver halide conduction band. In this way, the oxidised dye, which is a strong oxidant, is replaced by the radical, X•, which is a strong reductant. The two-electron transfer scheme has the potential of doubling the photographic speed because two electrons are injected per absorbed photon. Photographic data demonstrate that increases in sensitivity by factors approaching 2 can be obtained.".

Phew! so what does that mean for your photography? Simply put the film should have finer grain and slightly higher sensitivity than films without the 2 electron method.

Photographic tests
The following four images were taken mid afternoon, the top chart is in part shadow the bottom is in almost full sun.
Four photographs were taken in quick succession, the meter reading was taken from a grey card placed in the centre and a Minolta spotmeter F was used to find the correct exposure.


The film was taken to a local chemist and put through their 1 hr Fuji minilab. If you want a larger image just left click the pictures.
As you can see each image has a white paper in it with the respective exposures N (meter setting 100ISO) +1 with the lens opened 1 stop, -1 lens stopped down from normal by 1 stop, and -2 which was stopped down 2 stops from the normal frame.

At first glance an impressive result, the spread between +1/-2 is quite acceptable for normal photography if you have a simple camera without meter or use sunny 16 'guess' exposure method this film should give you enough latitude.
Looking at both the negatives and minilab prints along with the scans it is noticeable that at the -2 setting the shadow detail is beginning to block up, if you look in the shadows of the vine under the top chart texture and detail is not as well defined as in the N frame.
At the other end of the scale the +1 frame looks very good so good that I wish I'd taken a +2 frame as well.

I have read many suggestions that this film should be rated at a lower speed than 100, in my experience that has not proved to be the case. I think it would be best to work at box speed initially and do your own tests with cameras and the conditions you use to find your own personal speed index.

Colours are quite saturated especially in the red and blue parts of the spectrum, but somehow seem to give good skin tones, quite a difficult thing for emulsion engineers to achieve or so I'm told.
The following image was taken on a very dull day in winter.


The above scene is the sort of thing Ektar excels at, giving nice 'punchy' colours without overcooking, the magenta bike is pretty accurate as is the shade of pink in the girls boots.

Grain is very fine especially for a colour negative, I have printed a couple of shots to 8x12 inches with no apparent grain, when I get the chance I'll try to print one larger optically to see how far the grain holds up.
The 2 electron sensitisation really gives fine grain, I'll bet we see it introduced into a few more films before too long- Ektar 400 and 1600 would be nice!
Here is a final shot of a garden landscape the colours are pretty accurate as this was taken on a bright cloudless day, the sunlight in the UK can be pretty yellow and the shadows long on sunny winter days.



I have now used 5 rolls of Ektar and can say Kodak have a winner on their hands here, since I started to write this they have announced that Ektar 100 will now be available in 120 format which personally I use much more than 35mm.
I think Kodak have shown with this film (and the updated T-Max) that they are committed to providing film users with high quality materials- film is not dead!

© Text and images Mark Antony Smith 2009

Kodak Royal-x-Pan

I recently chanced to come by a roll of this iconic film. The film is out of date by some margin (expired 1976) and also a reject roll given to a Kodak employee.
I believe at the time of release that this was the fastest film produced by Kodak, with an ASA rating of 1250.
Exposing it 32 years after it has expired I really didn't expect much after all fast film generally doesn't keep well and depending on storage could be completely fogged and will certainly have reduced speed and higher base fog.

I decided to rate it at 100 ISO to account for the lost speed and develop it in Rodinal 1:25 for 6 mins one inversion every 30 seconds.
I also exposed it on a nice bright clear day in order to maximize the contrast.
here are a couple of images from the roll.

On the whole i am actually surprised to find that the film could record anyhting at all years after the 'best before' date.
The base of the film had quite a high level of fog and also there were some spots on the emulsion caused probably by storage over the last 30 plus years.
So if you find a roll of out of date film why not give it a try?

© Mark Antony Smith 2008

Kodak T-Max 3200

When doing the test for this film I had to make a couple of decisions, mainly because I use this film quite often for low light situations, but rarely at the box speed and also because  its one of the few films I don't care for developed in Rodinal due to its grain structure.

I personally feel rated at 1600 and developed in T-Max developer gives the best results overall with respect to shadow detail and grain.

   Above image TMZ rated at EI 1600 processed in T-Max developer

In fact Kodak state in their datasheet that TMZ can be rated between EI400 and EI 25,000 with their developers XTOL and T-Max. I can't imagine what it looks like at 25,000 but rated between 800-1600 it is good enough especially with the T-max developer, which tends to smooth grain and gives the best tonal range.

I decided to rate this film at 3200 ISO (box speed) and process in Rodinal 1:25 for 8 mins.

Below is a shot taken on a very dull day after a storm had brought down a tree:

There was very little light, I can't remember the exposure but I metered for the shadows in the tree on the left and closed down two stops from that reading.

The image below is a 100% crop of the shadow detail on the right hand side, and clearly shows

the cygnet riding on the mother swans back. Grain although quite visible is certainly unobtrusive considering the rated speed and developer choice.

Which brings me to what I feel is the films main weakness – its tonal range.

If I had rated it at a lower EI say 800 I'm pretty sure that both shadow detail and overall tonal graduation would have been a whole lot better, thats not to say that it performs poorly just I feel that unless you really need the extra stop you'll benefit from rating at EI 1600 or even lower, then developing accordingly.

If you need to rate this film higher then use the Kodak developers, rather than Agfa Rodinal which probably isn't the best developer for fast film.

But for those situations where you need speed or the light is low, P3200 (T-Max developer) are a pretty useful combination, although the films real speed is 1250-1600 in my opinion.
© Images and text Mark Antony Smith

Photophilia


These are two Kodacolor™ films I found in a local camera shop today. they expired in 1983 so I doubt I'll try them.
The reason I'm going to keep them is mainly nostalgic as I started my photographic career when these films were the current emulsion, and C41 was the new process (previously C22)
Inside the box was the original leaflet, please note the exposure info, as mentioned in my previous post 'guessing exposures'

Also of interest is the 'cutting guide' template for Leica thread mount cameras, and this may be useful for some of you LTM users: there is a link to the full size image 'here'
It may be possible for you to save the image (right click Windows just drag to the desktop Mac) then print the template in Photoshop.